


Quite Able To Defend Oneself

by afteriwake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 1960s, BAMF Violet, Bar Room Brawl, Bars and Pubs, Bartender Siger, F/M, First Meetings, Flirting, Impressed Siger, POV Siger Holmes, Payback, Pre-Series, Protective Siger, Protectiveness, Sucker Punch - Freeform, University, University Student Violet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 12:22:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6469909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had dreams. Plans. A relationship would just complicate matters. But you didn’t meet a woman like her every day...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quite Able To Defend Oneself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wetislandinthenorthatlantic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wetislandinthenorthatlantic/gifts), [Chitarra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chitarra/gifts).



> So this is my 650th Sherlock-centric fic! ::throws confetti:: I think that's the most I've written for any fandom except _possibly_ the Buffyverse, but I'm not sure since most of my Buffyverse fic has been lost. But anyway! This ship was picked out by **Chitarra** , and I had one single prompt for it which was given to me by **Wetislandinthenorthatlantic** and went as follows: " _Tell me about the day Violet meets Siger Holmes_." I thought it might be interesting to set it from Siger's POV when I heard about the [Robbins Report](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_Report) which was published in Britain in 1963 and though it might be interesting to incorporate into this when I was looking for big events to have happened in the early 60s. But anyway, I hope you all enjoy!

**October 24th, 1963**

Two years. Two bloody years it had taken the damn government to see that Colleges of Advanced Technology should be given university status. It was rather too late for him, he supposed; he’d put up with the snobbery from posh students who had a proper university education while he’d gone to Birmingham College of Advanced Technology. But at least if he ever had children and they weren’t able to get into Oxford or Cambridge or someplace like that, at least they wouldn’t be looked down their noses at like he’d been.

He went back to cleaning the glasses at the bar. It smarted, in a way, having to make do at a pub near Cambridge. He had the intelligence of at least two thirds of the students there, if not all of them. He just didn’t do well on tests, at studying. Not to the standards of that school. But he was smart, oh, he was quite smart. He could hold his own with the hoity toity types who thought they could look down at him because he tended bar. Didn’t get him many tips from the blokes but their dates would slip him a few quid. Sometimes their phone numbers as well, not that he ever took them up on them.

He had dreams, and right now...well, having a relationship in the picture would complicate that.

Though…

He glanced over at the booth at the young blonde woman who appeared to be studying some pretty advanced mathematics textbooks. He’d been trying his best from the bar to keep anyone who might disturb her away; she appeared to be immersed in whatever it was those books held and he’d give her all the peace he could in the noisy pub. Though why she was studying there instead of the dorms was surprising. Maybe he’d ask if she got a chance. Could be an interesting story.

“Another pint!”

He heard the pint glass slam on the counter and grimaced slightly. Stanley McMasters was a right rude drunk. Always hitting on the young and pretty university girls, especially when they didn’t seem interested. And he knew if Stan got his sights on the blonde in the booth, he’d be all over her like the bees that were all over the hives his father kept at the cottage. He had to draw his attention away. “You’re getting pretty close to the limit, Stan,” Siger said. “Perhaps you should think about spacing them out. Having some pub grub to eat.”

Stan glared at him. “I’ll take my damn pint, and no guff from you,” he said.

Siger sighed and went to go draw him a pint. He’d only turned his back for a moment when he heard the sound of a stool scraping back, and when he turned around again he saw Stan lurching towards the blonde in the booth. “Bloody hell,” he muttered, turning off the tap on the half-filled pint and then setting it on the bar. He didn’t care if someone came and took the drink, he wanted to intervene before disaster struck.

He got to the booth just moments after Stan had started speaking. “...doing in a place like this all by yourself?” he was saying.

“Attempting to study advanced calculus,” she said in a clipped tone without looking up from her book.

“Leave her be, Stan,” Siger said. “She’s not interested. I wasn’t done filling your pint.”

“You can bring it over here,” Stan said, sliding into the seat across from her.

She slowly lifted her head up to look at her uninvited guest. “I don’t recall inviting you to sit with me,” she said, glaring at him.

“Don’t need an invitation,” Stan said, his smile coming off more as a smarmy smirk. Siger cringed just slightly at that. “Public place and all.”

“I see,” she said. Then she looked up at Siger.

“I’m sorry,” he said. "He’s a boorish ass, but--”

“Hey, fuck off,” Stan said, the smirk dropping off his face.

“The bartender has a very valid point,” the woman said, turning back to Stan. “You are boorish and you are an ass. Furthermore, you’re rather unkempt and just when was the last time you took a bath? Two, three days ago?”

“I don’t need any sass from a hoity toity prissy bitch,” Stan said, heaving himself out of the booth. He glared at Siger when he got out. “And you and I...we’ll be having words when your shift is done.”

“If you can remember them,” Siger said. He should have expected that Stan would throw a punch then, but it still managed to catch him off guard and he ended up sprawled on the floor. What was even more surprising, though, was the woman getting out of the booth, going up to Stan and kneeing him in the groin before giving him a solid right hook across the face. There was quite a bit of satisfaction in watching Stan fall down to the ground, whimpering like a little baby. She shook her fist for a moment, then turned and offered her hand to him. “Thank you…?” he asked, taking it.

“Violet,” she said. “Violet Reynolds.”

“Siger Holmes,” he said, using her help to stand up. He moved his jaw back and forth, confident Stan hadn’t done any permanent damage, and then glanced down at Stan before looking at her. “You know, let me get you something to eat. On me. It isn’t every day someone comes to my rescue. Usually it’s the other way around.”

“I would enjoy that,” she said, giving him a wide smile. “But only if you’ll share it with me?”

“I think I can take a bit of a break in about an hour,” he said. “Is that okay?”

“I think that’s absolutely perfect,” she said. “Do you need any help getting this piece of refuse off the premises?”

“No, I think I’ve got that,” he said with a grin. “Thank you for the offer, though. You go back to studying your calculus and I’ll join you when I can.”

“I look forward to it,” she said before sitting back down in her booth. He moved over to Stan and roughly hauled him up, moving him towards the exit to the pub. He had dreams, he did, of proving he was worth just as much as those with a “proper” education. And yes, perhaps a relationship _might_ complicate things. But he doubted a woman like Violet Reynolds came along more than once in a lifetime, and he would be foolish to let her go.

And if there was one thing he was not? It was a fool.


End file.
